California Dreaming
by Elspeth
Summary: song fic, what happens when the one you love isn\'t there anymore? the gundams have lost so much but what happens when one dies? wu is gone but someone can\'t let him go. weepy warning


The air was growing cold, autumn was hanging in the air and the chilly October wind bit harshly through the thin white suit lese wore. White, under the circumstances it felt somehow wrong to the shadow cat operator to be wearing that colour. To her, white meant marriage, purity and virginity, maybe it came from being brought up in a catholic orphanage or maybe it was just coming from l2 a western colony that made her feel that black would have been a more appropriate choice.   
  
ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN  
AND THE SKY IS GREY  
  
  
She held her head high, her violet eyes staring off into the distant sinking sun as it dipped slowly behind the mountain of the tiny village, turning it's snowy peaks to molten lava in it's fading glow. If she could she would have smiled as the fiery orb turned the crisp white linen of her jacket back into her more familiar orange. But somehow Celeste felt that her trademark smile, like the blossom now being tugged from the trees on the wind, was going to die this winter.  
  
  
I BEEN FOR A WALK  
ON A WINTERS DAY  
  
She'd seen enough, she'd watched his memorial laid, heard the gongs ring out across the valley as the villagers beat out their grief, and heard the wailing that had taken up after that resounding thunder. Oh she'd endured their cold looks too and been keenly aware she was not welcome. An outsider, a gaijin, an American, what was she doing here? They'd whispered, she was probably responsible for his death; yes some oz bitch comes to gloat at their warriors demise. She knew that much Chinese, a year with someone will teach you things…so many things. A year? Is that all it had been? It felt like forever, a year of being wanted, needed…loved. But now alone again. How could she endure it? HOW COULD HE LEAVE HER?!  
  
She raised her eyes across to where the stone stood, a simple obelisk embedded beneath a bang yang tree. The words " ZHANG WUFEI " cut deep into its craggy face, scared forever with the name of the dragon. She'd not been near it, there was little point he didn't lie under that slab, and they never had found the body. For weeks they'd searched the wreckage of Altron until Duo and Heero had had to haul her away still screaming he wasn't dead, she wouldn't believe it until she held his corpse in her arms and felt the fire die within him.  
  
She glanced at her bandaged hands still bleeding from the gashes shifting gundanium with her bare hands had opened. Sally had made her come here, to say goodbye, thought it would help her heal…how could she say goodbye again…so many goodbyes in her life far far too many, there came a point when the clown mask had to slip, when the smile faded and the pain shone through, she didn't want to heal she wanted to hate…it was all she had left now.  
  
She was an outsider with her grief, no one could understand. She turned her back on the grave and started walking back down the track into the village, the air growing colder and the wind began to pull at her clothes, but she didn't notice, she was numb inside why not out as well? Let the wind chill her skin it was dead without his touch anyway.  
  
  
I'D BE SAFE AND WARM IF I WAS IN LA  
  
Her laptop beeped breaking the silent mountain air, she glanced at it, it was Duo, checking up on her no doubt. She turned it off, she didn't want to talk to him, they'd said enough before she left anyway. He was on another mission, off in America doing…whatever, she didn't know, they argued like they had when they were kids before she'd left, him wanting her out of harms way, her seeking any mission to keep her mind off what had happened. He didn't understand, she'd tried comparing it to if his beloved Heero died but he wouldn't listen. In the end she was happy to leave for china, it was hard not to hate Duo, he still had Heero, still had someone, she had yet to tell him she wasn't coming home. She didn't think she would tell him at all, it would upset him too much, she'd just slip away, in time he wouldn't miss her she assured herself. He'd managed before without her…he could do it again  
  
  
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN  
ON SUCH A WINTERS DAY  
  
The wall broke and the tears fell, crystal shards ripped from her soul, she wanted to curl up next to duo and howl and scream, cry on his shoulder till she fell asleep exhausted but she wasn't his problem. Crying does no good anyway, big girls don't cry. She hiccupped stopping the tears mid flow, angry at herself for her weak outburst, wufei would have been right to call her a weak onna, she was pathetic. She wiped her eyes and drew a shaky breath pushing her loose chestnut mane away from her face and angrily tucking it behind her ears  
  
She was tired and her legs ached badly, the restless nights and lack of food beginning to show in her hollowed cheeks and the dark smudges under her eyes. She looked towards the boarding house but was met only with a scowl from the owner  
" Filthy oz whore" he snarled in mandarin his black eyes openly showing loathing.   
  
Lese hung her head, they were right. She'd worked for oz while she'd been undercover, if she'd done her job properly wufei would have been nowhere near that base, alone with Altron low on power. He'd been worried when sally had heard no word from her and gone to get her out….suicide completely. She…. she'd killed him, she may as well have murdered him, this was all her fault. Hell it was always her fault.  
  
" I screwed up again sister Helen…big surprise huh? I bet ya real proud…you should have let me die" she growled up at the darkening sky, self-loathing welling in the pit of her stomach, she shivered a little and hugged herself but it bought little comfort to her. Then she saw something familiar and stiffly walked over to it.  
  
  
  
STOPPED INTO A CHURCH  
I PASSED ALONG THE WAY  
  
She pushed open the door of the old mission, it's hinges cried out in the cold setting her teeth on edge. She stumbled towards the alter, her feet tapping out a heart beat upon the stone floor and raised her crimson rimmed eyes to the crucifix swinging above her head. The cross gave her a little comfort, reminded her of safer, warmer times when she was but a child. But then that's all she was now…a child in an adult war. Not even finished growing and her soul stained with so much blood, she was a killer…more so than the others, she'd shot a man in cold blood before the war began, back on l2 and now she was paying for it. Correction, those she loved were paying for it  
  
  
WELL I GOT DOWN ON MY KNEES  
AND I PRETEND TO PRAY  
  
She leaned her head on the chilly alter, it's musty smell filling her nose and clouded her brain with memories of so many years she wanted to forget. Wu….why him  
" Why?!!" she screamed at the impassive face hanging above her. Once more there were no answers for her questions anyone to turn to. Not now. All she heard was her own anguish echoing off the cold stonewalls, laughing at her.  
  
" Suffer little children who come unto me," she whispered.   
" How much more do you want me to suffer?!! What more are you going to take from me?!! Just take my damn life and be done with it…you hear me?!!!" she sobbed hysterically, crumpling upon the floor her body shaking, her nerves raw.  
  
YOU KNOW THE PREACHER LIKES THE COLD  
HE KNOWS I'M GONNA STAY  
  
Of all of them she'd never thought he would be the one to die first, he'd been her rock that grounded her. Steady, dependable, strong, the bottom had been ripped out of her world and she felt like she was falling, falling into a dark abyss and she never wanted to get out. Just rap herself in misery and never return could she go on now? There was only so much she could take before even she broke.   
  
She glanced at the painted window above her, a smiling saint mocking her in his tranquillity; she fisted the crucifix round her neck and broke it free.   
Her gaze was ice, as she looked god's son in the eyes. His pain seemed so little compared to what she had seen in her few scant years.  
  
" You've abandoned me? Well I'm done with you..To hell with you" she whispered  
  
Then with out looking back she rose to her feet and threw the cross on the floor behind her , the delicate chain tinkling as it fell wounded against cobbles.  
  
She opened the door of the church and stepped out into the cold once more, she didn't belong here anymore, if she was going to sleep tonight she'll do it where she belonged. She turned and began walking back up the hill to Wufei's grave.  
  
Overhead the first snows of winter began their fall and caressed her pale cheeks, hot from crying, dancing on the wind that tossed her hair into waves behind her.  
  
  
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN  
ON SUCH A WINTERS DAY  
  
She'd slept out in the snow before, the night Duo had pulled her into the doorway of a bombed out house and told her to stay, stay while he went to find solo. She'd slept all night in that white cold embrace till she didn't notice her own shivering anymore, her whole body becoming numb as it was now. Till Duo woke her in the morning, his lips blue and his eyes red, spilling lies that he hadn't found solo, she knew he had, knew their friend was lying cold and stiff beneath the snow. Beneath the cold pure white snow…maybe white was the colour of death after all. A white empty void with nothing beyond it.  
  
Duo was not the Shinigami he thought he was, it was her, that was clear to her now, solo had been her friend too, the orphans had been looked after by her, she'd seen sister Helen and father Maxwell killed while Duo tried to steal the mobile suit. She'd loved wufei…and now he was dead. All her not Duo, it was her  
  
ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN  
AND THE SKY IS GREY  
  
She knelt in front of the grave, the air silent save for the creaking of the bang yang tree above her and looked at her reflection in the glass of Wufei's picture  
  
" Watashi wa shinigami yo" she whispered, death looked back at her, a ghost she was, pale almost porcelain skin, with hollowed cheeks and wild hair, her lips colourless, her gaze dead and life less. All around her was white…like another world, white snow under a black sky. Winter the season of death had come; she picked up Wufei's picture and touched the chilly pane.  
  
I BEEN FOR A WALK  
ON A WINTERS DAY  
  
" Look at what you've done wu, all that fighting. The screaming and shouting, the times I slapped you and told you I hated you and you beat me by doing nothing…by growing silent " her tears fell and froze on the ground, she didn't care she was content to sit here just so forever.  
  
" You can't leave me," she whispered, brushing the tears away, her mind was made up he wasn't going to leave her she'd join him, but first revenge, they had to pay for slaying the dragon.  
  
  
I'D BE SAFE AND WARM IF I WAS IN LA  
  
She was going back to the states and oz would feel the dragons claws crush them one last time, feel the she dragons vengeance. She slipped off her jacket, her skin instantly rising into goose bumps, and pulled Wufei's sword from the ground where it had been embedded. Taking the blade she bowed once to the grave and shut her eyes drawing a deep gash across her palm.  
  
She squeezed her fist over his grave, her blood splattering upon the snow, little flowers of crimson, dancing across the ice.  
" They will pay I swear it" she hissed ignoring the pain, she would live…for now till her final mission was complete, then she'd lie once more with wufei, safe in the dragons arms  
  
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN  
ON SUCH A WINTERS DAY   
  
She grabbed her hair, wrapping the long silken strands round her fist and bowed her head. The blade sliced the mane clean leaving her once, sin fully long hair now hanging in points round her jaw line. She ran the strands through her fingers, cool like silk within her numb grasp before she set them free on the wind spiralling away.  
  
" What was he to you child?"  
  
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN  
ON SUCH A WINTERS DAY  
  
She turned at the old cracked voice behind her, to see a woman bent double with age watching her with bright black eyes. Lese bowed her head and slipped the strap of her top to one side, showing Wufei's name tattooed in mandarin upon her shoulder.  
  
" He was my life" she whispered before meeting the woman's gaze once more " and now it's over" the woman looked shocked, unsteadily she reached out towards Celeste to try and comfort her, thoughts of her not belonging by their warriors grave silenced. But lese rose and backed away, retrieving her jacket from the snow.  
  
" Careful old woman…don't get close to me I'll end up killing you" she growled, then she picked up Wufei's sword and secured it on her back, a faint smile upon her lips  
  
  
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN  
ON SUCH A WINTERS DAY  
  
The L.A base would, by tomorrow be no more, and nor would she. She left the stunned woman starring after her as she walked off into the night. She did not hear the woman calling after her in Chinese  
  
" Stop wait!!" the woman looked at the lap top lese had left by Wufei's grave anxiously chewing her lip  
  
" GIRL WAIT" she screamed, but it was too late, lese was not going to get the message from sally Po that was now on the screen.  
  
"VIXEN, WUFEI FOUND. WAS INSIDE BASE NOT ALTRON. RESCUE MISSION UNDER WAY LED BY HEERO AND DUO. RETURN HOME AT ONCE. SALLY"  
  
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN  
ON SUCH A WINTERS DAY  
  
" I'll see you soon wufei" lese whispered  



End file.
